Bulgaria's Cabinet decided to allot additional BGN 200,000 from the national budget for 2005 for the defence of the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in Libya.

The defense expenses will be mainly linked to the appeal of the death sentences of the five women passed on them by a Benghazi court on May 6, 2004. The verdict has been appealed and Libya's Supreme Court will hear the case on March 29.

Another two civil indemnity claims worth nearly EUR 6,000,000 have been lodged by the relatives of HIV infected children against the nurses.

The Bulgarians have spent about six years in Libyan jail, during a trial for deliberate HIV infection of more than 400 Libyan children. In May 2004, court in Benghazi passed death sentences on the nurses, who were pleading not guilty.

The convicts insisted they had been tortured by Libyan officers to extract false confessions.